Page 36 of Easy Reunion
That doesn’t bode well.
Leaning against the counter, I silently agree. A large part of me knows I should just meet her and let her go. I’m no good for whatever beauty her future holds. I’m more tainted by my past than she could be by hers. Kelsey’s had the ability to transform herself into someone different, but how do you transform something so ugly, you’d do anything…
An incoming text pulls me from traveling down a bleak road. When I read it, I’m floored. And the dark part of me that’s trying to pull me away loses its grip when I’m lassoed in by her words.
I’m struggling with this, Ry. Then there’s a part of me that wants to calmly walk away because I can’t, won’t, be hurt like that again.
I’m clutching the screen so tight I’m afraid it might crack. Again, Kelsey’s words undo me. I read them over and over until they’re memorized.
Lisa gets frustrated waiting for my answer. She shoves herself off the couch and gets to her feet. Standing in front of me, she waves her arms. “Hey, Ry? You in there?”
Quickly, without answering Lisa, I type back,Please, let me see you tomorrow. Let me give you the words you deserve in person.I’m desperately praying she says yes because I owe her a long-overdue apology and a reassurance that whateverthisis, it isn’t because of what happened before. It’s because we’re here, we’re us. And my heart’s pounding just as hard as I hope hers is.
What are you thinking?
After trading a few texts back and forth, we decide on meeting at Audubon Park. I tell her I’ll meet her in the early afternoon. Then I get a text that causes a broad smile to break out across my face. I slip my phone into my pocket before I give my full attention to my sister.
Lisa’s impatiently waiting for me to finish. “Aren’t you supposed to make plans for your next date when you’re, say, on it?”
“Not when you almost screw it up at the end.”
“Oh, Ry.” She lays a hand on my arm sympathetically, right before she punches me. “Don’t screw up.”
“I can’t seem to not manage it around her,” I admit.
Lisa gapes at me before a wonky smile that used to cross her face before she would tattle on me to our mother appears. My balls draw up in fear. “What?” I demand.
“Nothing,” she demurs.
“Lisa,” I say, warningly.
“Just that watching you drown is going to be an extra form of entertainment I didn’t realize I’d get when I moved here.” She turns and laughs over her shoulder as she makes her way back to the couch. Picking up the textbook she was reading, she tunes me out.
Shaking my head, I make my way down the hall and head upstairs to my suite of rooms. Stripping out of my clothes, I crawl between the sheets thinking of the last thing Kelsey sent me over text.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
Maybe our path in life isn’t predetermined by the things that happened to us or even by a single action. Perhaps it’s determined by our willingness to humble ourselves to correct the wrongs.
If so, maybe I have a chance at not only redemption but happiness.
Finally.
